Apple Paid Major Music Labels $150M To Get On Board The iCloud Service

Ever wonder how much it will cost you to fund a cloud storage service that's similar to Apple's iCloud? According to report by The New York Post, you will be needing about $150 million in total because that is the amount that Apple paid to secure licensing rights from four major music label (Warner, EMI, Sony and Universal).

Earlier this week, Apple has finalized its negotiations with Universal Music Group which is the last of the four major music label that signed up with Apple's iCloud service. The timing for the finalization of this deal couldn't have been more impeccable because Apple has announced that the iCloud will be unveiled (and will possibly launch) on WWDC on Monday.

Apple will fork over between $100 million and $150 million in advanced payments to the four major music labels in order to get its iCloud off the ground, three separate sources told The Post.

The Cupertino, Calif., tech giant has agreed to pay the labels between $25 million to $50 million each, as an incentive to get on board, depending on how many tracks consumers are storing.

With such amount of money in order to get iCloud up and running, one can only conclude that the music streaming feature will most unlikely to be offered for free. This is despite earlier reports that the iCloud will be offered for free for those who will purchase Apple's next major OS X release, the Mac OS X Lion.As of this writing, there is no official statement from Apple with regards to the price of iCloud subscription. But there have been circulating rumors that subscribers are expected to pay $25 / month after a free introductory trial period.

Be sure to tune in with us as Apple reveals more about their new cloud storage service, the iCloud in WWDC 2011 coming this Monday June 6.